Design Patterns for Document Approval Processes – Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, we discussed an approval process that collects comments/a signature from an external, anonymous person. This second pattern is another common approval process where an employee forwards a request to his/her manager. The manager can approve/reject the request or ask the employee for more information. A common variation is where a supervisor or VP has to further approve in some situations e.g. the amount is greater than $1,000.

Some examples might be:

Employee submits a Purchase Requisition (purchase request).

Vacation/Leave approval.

Student course/schedule changes approved by advisor.

Contract approval by supervisor.

Expense report.

With frevvo 5.3, automating this process is straightforward.

Drag and drop the internal employee form(s) into the workflow and use the Form Designer to layout/arrange controls. Typically, you’d add the manager and VP sections to this same form and hide them in the first step. Currently, this requires a simple business rule but we’ll soon be removing the need to write a rule.

Use a linked step for the manager and configure it to route [dynamically] to the employee’s manager using a built-in template.

If required, use a linked activity for the VP and configure it to route to the VP. Set a pre-condition on this activity so it only runs if the condition is true.

The final step could be to route to an HR or Purchasing role, to integrate with a database or with a back end system.

That’s it. How does it work? The employee accesses the workflow (preferably via a frevvo space) and fills in the form, signs it and clicks Continue.

frevvo will send that employee’s manager a notification, which the designer can customize. The manager clicks on the notification [on any device], can view the purchase request and approve it or send it back for corrections. If approved, the workflow will be routed to the VP for further approval if the set condition is true otherwise it will continue to the next step for fulfillment.